Stadium issue

Sunday, NFL commish Roger Goodell was at the Raiders game and talked about how the Raiders and 49ers should talk some more about sharing a new stadium. After the game, Raiders Chief Executive Amy Trask checked in with the status of the stadium and its current site:

“There is no short answer. … We’re having ongoing discussions about the stadium opportunities. We’re working very, very cooperatively with the city and with the local officials. We’ve been extolling the virtues of this site for a quite awhile now. It was a year and a half, 18 months, give or take, maybe more, just under, but about a year and a half ago that I started talking about this site and using a new-stadium on this site as an opportunity to revitalize the whole area.

Why not, rather than look simply look at the stadium project, look at how one can use a stadium as an anchor for, or a catalyst for, an urban redevelopment that provides economic stimulus for the whole region? You guys know as well as I do that this site is centrally located, it’s tremendously well-served by public transportation. There are stadiums and facilities all over the country where they’re trying to figure out, how do we get subways or trains to come to our stadium? We’ve got BART. We’ve got Amtrak, the capitol corridor, the ACE train. So, it’s a central location on a freeway, well-served by public transportation.

So, about a year and a half ago, we started proposing and extolling the virtues of proposing the possibility of doing a stadium project on this site. Not as a stand-alone facility but as a catalyst for an urban renovation in the manner in which to bring economic stimulus for the whole region. We have been working very cooperatively with the city and the Joint Powers Authority. You guys understand this region. Right now, fans come to this facility and there’s nowhere for them to spend their money in the area. There’s one or two spots on Hegenbereger, but how about doing something here like was done on the waterfront.”

Goodell also addressed Oakland’s 10th straight home game being blacked out on local television.

“We know in this type of environment how difficult it is for fans to come to the stadium,” he said. “We’ve tried to address that in a variety of ways. We tried to manage our policies, we’ve tried to look at our comp ticket policy to see if we can make it easier. ..

“I was down there with fans and there’s no shortage for passion here, that’s for sure. We just need to get more fans in the stadium.”